Survivors of sexual assault who decide to have forensic rape kit exams undergo hours of invasive medical procedures, all with the hope that DNA found will lead to an arrest.

Many of these kits can go untested for years.

Lawmakers across the state are working to rectify this growing issue. Locally, law enforcement agencies have found ways to bring justice to victims, but most communities can't say the same.

On Tuesday, state Senator Connie Leyva (D-Chino) and Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) — along with a broad coalition of supporters — held a press conference to discuss the importance of passing legislation to ensure that all rape kits in California are tested promptly.

"When that victim chooses to have a rape kit done, we want to make sure it doesn't sit on a shelf somewhere and go untested," Leyva said.

Senate Bill 1449 would require a newly collected rape kit be submitted within 20 days and tested no later than 120 days after receipt. Assembly Bill 3118 requires a statewide audit of California’s current untouched rape kits.

In 2015, USA TODAY and journalists from more than 75 Gannett newspapers, including this one, and TEGNA TV stations found at least 70,000 neglected kits in an open-records campaign covering 1,000-plus police agencies.

Despite its scope, the agency-by-agency count only covered a fraction of the nation's 18,000 police departments, suggesting the number of untested rape kits reached into the hundreds of thousands.

Decades of promises from politicians and more than $1 billion in federal funding failed to fix the problems. The roughly $1,000 cost to analyze each kit is among the hindrances for police.

Records obtained from police agencies in all 50 states showed:

While attention was focused on large metro police agencies, tens of thousands of untested sexual assault kits were accumulating almost without notice at rural and smaller city departments. Hundreds of rape kits remained untested in places like Muncie, Ind., Visalia, St. Cloud, Minn., and Green Bay, Wis.

In most states and at most law enforcement agencies, there were no written guidelines for processing sex-crime evidence. Decisions often were left to the discretion of investigating officers, leading to inconsistencies.

Although uploading offenders' DNA information into state and national databases is proven to identify serial predators who move across jurisdictions, police often treat rape kits as if the evidence is relevant only to the single assault with which it is associated.

Authorities at all levels of government were failing to quantify the problem. At least 50 major law enforcement agencies — from Montgomery, Ala., to Reno, Nev. — had never counted the untested rape kits in their evidence rooms. Most states hadn't undertaken an inventory.

The U.S. Department of Justice was failing to comply with a 2013 law that was meant to get more rape kits tested and set national protocols for processing sexual assault evidence.

Locally, the issue of untested rape kits has been minimized thanks to the use of Rapid DNA testing.

With Rapid DNA technology, a DNA reference sample can be compared to DNA profiles within California's DNA Index System. This processes dramatically reduces the time it would take the DOJ to return results, officials said.

Tulare County was selected as a pilot agency for the quick testing method after investigative report into untested DNA tests.

During an exam, a forensic nurse will take two swabs from the victim and send them to the DOJ, who then have uo to 30 days to enter the DNA into a database.

Last year, Family Service advocates attended 76 rape kit exams.

"We're already ahead of the game," Boteilho said. "But that legislation would push us forward even more."

Recently, state Senator Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield) signed a letter of support written by Assemblywoman Catherine Baker (R-Dublin). The letter sent to Attorney General Xavier Becerra expressed "strong support" for rapid DNA testing at booking stations throughout the state.

"The advancement of laboratory DNA technologies has allowed state and local law enforcement to use DNA evidence to convict guilty offenders and exonerate the innocent," the letter stated.

It's helped bring Visalia to the head of the line.

In 2015, Visalia police reported that over a 15 year period, 262 rape kits went untested.

That doesn't mean suspects weren't arrested. In fact, in the majority of reported cases, attackers were arrested.

Visalia Chief Jason Salazar said sending tests in is based on a variety of factors. If the attacker is known, Visalia police work with the District Attorney's Office to track the suspect down and prosecute.